A bill on fertility fraud inspired by a Netflix documentary is on its way to the South Dakota House of Representatives after clearing its first screening committee Friday morning.
House Bill 1164 would make the knowing use by a licensed medical provider of their own reproductive material or the reproductive material of another person to inseminate a patient without their written consent both a crime and a civil cause of action.
A doctor who uses their own sperm to inseminate someone would not be able to use consent for the use of an anonymous donor as a defense against prosecution or a civil lawsuit.
Rep. Terri Jorgenson, R-Piedmont, told the House Judiciary Committee that she first “stumbled upon” a YouTube video on fertility fraud, then watched a 2022 documentary called “Our Father.”
The film tells the story of Dr. Donald Cline, an Indianapolis fertility specialist who secretly used his own sperm to father more than 90 children in the 1970s and 1980s without their mothers’ knowledge.
Cline was convicted of obstruction of justice for lying to investigators in 2017. His case prompted Indiana in 2019 to pass a bill similar to Jorgenson’s proposal. Other states, including Texas, have already done so, Jorgenson said.
“These states acted because existing laws were inadequate,” she said. “General fraud, medical malpractice or assault statutes often fail to capture the unique violation involved, resulting in light consequences or no prosecution at all.”
The Jorgenson bill affixes penalties of up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine to fertility fraud. People could sue the wrongdoer for up to five years from the date of a DNA paternity test or other evidentiary record becoming available, from the date the licensed provider admits to their behavior, or from the date that a child born of such a fraudulent scheme turns 18 years old.
One proponent of Jorgenson’s bill, Josh Wood, directs the child-focused nonprofit organization Them Before Us. He told lawmakers that at least 50 providers nationwide have been accused of similar fertility fraud, and said the impact on the psychological wellbeing of children who learn of the fraudulent nature of their parentage can be lifelong and devastating.
“They are left to grapple with the aftermath as they realize and process that they were conceived in medical assault,” Wood said. “They experience genealogical bewilderment. They discover half siblings living in close proximity. We actually have cases where some have even dated, and they deal with the implications of not knowing their own family medical history.”
Rep. John Hughes, R-Sioux Falls, thanked Jorgenson for identifying what he called a gap in state law. Medical malpractice suits must be commenced in South Dakota within two years of the action that caused a patient’s injury, he said, regardless of when a patient learns about the injury.
“We have one of the shortest, most onerous statutes of limitations on medical malpractice in the United States,” said Hughes, an attorney who described the two malpractice cases he’s tried in his career among the most difficult he’d ever worked on.
You can read the full article at KOTA.